Lots of sports I like that should be on there but are virtually unknown in the Anglo-American cultural sphere of influence, however.

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To follow on from Vimes's point (although I would disagree about the Anglo-American sphere of influence regarding team sports as us & the seppos barely share one in common) I don't think one can really say one sport is intrinsically better than another, merely that one enjoys a particular sport more personally. Gun to head I'd probably say if I had to choose one sport to watch solely for the rest of my life it'd be association football, but that's because I've got about a quarter of a century's worth of memories invested in it. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily better than (say) AFL, just that I prefer it.

When we compare sports the perceived strengths of our preference are often seen as weaknesses by non-fans. To use football as the example, it could be argued that one of its biggest strengths is the uniquely high value it places on scoring (very few other sports have 1-0 as a common scoreline), however if one is of an Aussie Rules/basketball bent this could be seen as a weakness because it quite often means the quote-unquote less deserving team (i.e. the team who've had less possession or territorial advantage) wins the game. In sports were scoring regularly run in three figures this is less of an issue. As a football fan tho I could very well equally say that sports where scoring is almost fetishised devalue the very act of scoring.

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Handball is the obvious one - has a presence in basically every country in continental Europe, I'm yet to encounter a Brit who has heard of it. Then there's all the individual endurance sports: cycling, speed skating, cross-country skiing, biathlon. Of those, only cycling registers, and only because of Lance and the dopeheads. In fact, I will watch pretty much anything on snow (except freestyle, which is mildly ridiculous judged as a sport), curling (if snooker's a sport so is curling). I like speedway too, but that's at least known somewhat in England and Australia.

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

To follow on from Vimes's point (although I would disagree about the Anglo-American sphere of influence regarding team sports as us & the seppos barely share one in common)

True that, there's two spheres. Still, neither of them has particularly large intersection with the rest of the world - with the obvious exception of that kick-a-ball-and-run-game - it says something that there are more people wearing baseball caps in the world today than could explain to you how a run is scored in baseball (or at least I'd hazard a guess that this is so.). And arguably the main sports have similar intent: baseball and cricket, yankball and rugby, ice hockey and football, (basketball has no analogy I'll admit). Also, the individual sports which have taken head are those with the head-to-head aspect, and the inexplicable golf, which can only be due to the fact that it's got so many recreational players who want to watch the masters.

The interesting thing is that neither country managed (or wanted?) to export their professional sports to any great degrees - apart from football, boxing and basketball, and the latter was never that popular in America in the first place (afaik gridiron and baseball were the popular team sports over there at least up to Jordan's and Gretzky broke through, and how the NHL survives with 30 teams is beyond me...).

The rest of your point is nailed on (except for the bit where you claim you'd want association football as the only sport ). I'm reared on sports where a tocking clock is enough to provide high drama - because, if you've got enough information, you know that in about 15-20 seconds your favourite will peep round the trees and have about 25 seconds to the finish, which should be good enough to win...so get round those trees, please...

In my teenage years I used to be able to sit down and watch every ball of a test match without trouble (despite what Richard says). I went through a few of those stages during the last Ashes series, but games just aren't as competitive as they used to be, so I don't watch cricket as much as I used to and really don't have the time.

I love watching League during the winter, none of the other codes do it for me, they are quite boring tbh.

As far as Basketball goes, I'll watch Bullets in the NBL and Bucks in the NBA, but basketball is a live game for me, and the NBA game I went to in the States was one of the best sporting events I've been to.

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